The President's Daughter
Page 43
Nick helps me with putting additional bandages and compresses on David’s wound, but we exchange a look, and we know with cold certainty what’s going to happen shortly, as David’s skin color starts to fade even more.
His flickering eyes focus on me, and he whispers, “Hope, Hope, Hope…”
Nick says, “That’s right, don’t give up, keep hoping, pal, we’re gonna get you to a clinic real soon now. Hang on, David, keep hoping.”
My eyes tear up and I say, “No, he’s using Mel’s Secret Service code name. I’m Harbor, my wife is Harp…and Mel is Hope.” I look up and yell, “Mel, get over here, now!”
She tries her best to keep her balance, her upper arm bandaged, as the helicopter increases its speed. Claire follows her, the chopper jumping and jerking, and Mel kneels down next to David, and I say, “David, look. She’s here. Mel is safe. Hope is safe. You did your job.”
Mel starts quietly crying and takes his right hand, squeezes it, and I take his left hand and do the same.
I say, “David, good job. You saved my daughter. You saved Hope.”
His eyes flicker.
He smiles.
He whispers, “Good.”
Then he dies.
Chapter
132
Georgetown University
Washington, DC
Rollie Spruce is a grad student at Georgetown, studying at the Georgetown University Law Center, but tonight he’s working a double shift as a bartender at a convention being held at the university’s hotel and conference center.
His feet hurt, his mouth is dry from last night’s partying, and his hands shake a bit as he mixes cocktails and draws various beers for the convention attendees crowding the joint tonight.
Thing is, though, these guys—archaeologists and other types of dirt diggers—may be experts in their fields, but they’re also experts at nursing drinks for hours and then tipping as if they, not him, were impoverished grad students.
Years back, in Vermont, Dad told him, “Rollie, learn a good trade like bartending. You’ll always find work. In good times, people like to drink, and in bad times, they like to drink even more.”
Good advice, and some nights he really does rake in the tips, but this night sure looks like another bust.
He’s taking a minute to wash and rinse some cocktail glasses at his station when a woman sitting at the table in the near corner starts screaming loudly.
“What the…” he says, and he leans over the bar to see what the hell is going on, and then there’s yells, shouts, applause, and the woman who was screaming just a moment ago is being hugged and kissed by a hell of a lot of people.
One of the guys breaks away from the table and comes rushing up to Rollie and says, “Quick, bud, a bottle of champagne. Best you got! Send it over to our table…hell, champagne for everyone. Drinks on the house!”
Rollie doesn’t need to be told twice and gets to work as there’s more cheering and applause. He sees that lots of people are standing, looking at the television set up above the bar. A few minutes ago, it was showing a Washington Nationals baseball game, but now there’s a news anchor from one of the networks, smiling and talking into the camera.
Rollie doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but on the TV screen behind the news anchor is a photo of Mel Keating, the former president’s daughter—whom Rollie always thought was cute in a nerdy kind of way—and based on what Rollie sees, it looks as though she’s alive and was rescued somewhere in North Africa.
Cool, Rollie thinks as he kneels down before the small refrigerator to check how many champagne bottles they have on ice.
Looks as though it’s going to be a good night after all.
Epilogue
Chapter
133
Bangor International Airport
Bangor, Maine
We’re flying home on a US Air Force Boeing C-40 passenger jet, provided to us following a happy phone call to Air Force secretary Kimberly Bouchard, who quickly dispatched it to Sfax-Thyna in Tunisia to pick us up.
As we descend into Bangor, we remain short two passengers: first, the Chinese man who claimed to be from the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, innocently caught in the cross fire.
Mel told me otherwise aboard our Black Hawk flight out of Libya, and I made sure that when we got back to Tunisia, the quiet and injured Chinese citizen was placed in the custody of a hard-looking man and equally hard-looking woman who were supposedly State Department representatives from our embassy in Tunisia.
They were to provide aid and assistance, of course, prior to his being brought to his country’s embassy in Tunis.
The other missing passenger, the remains of one brave and dedicated Secret Service special agent David Stahl, is flying several hours behind us on a C-17 transport plane, heading to the Air Force base in Dover, Delaware.
It’s been a quiet, long flight, with rows of empty seats beside us. Nick and Alejandro have slept a lot and ate the Air Force in-flight food, standard fare, and Mel and Claire have spent a couple of hours catching up and playing who’s-gone-where and what-is-so-and-so-doing.
Now Mel is stretched out across two seats, a blanket draped over her, her head in my lap, as she sleeps and hopefully doesn’t dream.
I’ve stayed awake most of the time. It’s traditional among Special Forces to have a debrief following the end of a mission, but not this time. The only debrief is taking place in my memory, as I go over what happened, how it happened, could it have gone better? For though I’m grateful beyond words that my daughter is asleep in my lap, a terrible price was paid.
The pilot comes over the intercom. “Passengers, prepare for landing.”
A uniformed female senior airman comes through and wakes up Nick, Claire, and Alejandro, tells them to fasten their safety belts, and she comes to Mel and me and smiles and shakes her head.
“You’re fine, Mr. President,” she says.
“Thanks.”
After we land, we taxi some and the jet comes to a halt, and Mel wakes up, yawns, and I give her another hug and say, “Hold on. I nearly forgot to give this back to you.”
From my pants pocket I take out her gold ring, her sixteenth birthday gift from her mother, and I slip it on her finger and her eyes tear right up. “Dad…God, I was dreading telling Mom that I might have lost it.”
“Well, now you don’t have to.”
The forward door is opened, and a mobile stairway is rolled up. Nick and I try to help Mel down the stairs but she shakes us off—“I’m hurt, guys, not crippled.” She goes down to the tarmac by herself, holding tight to the guardrails.
A black Chevrolet Suburban with tinted windows is waiting nearby, engine running. Nick, Alejandro, and Claire walk over to it, carrying their black duffel bags, and Mel and I follow them. Hugs and handshakes are exchanged—my wrist is aching but doing okay—and I say to them, “I can’t tell you how much my wife and I owe you. We’re in your debt. Forever.”
Nick says, “No worries, sir. It was good to settle accounts for Boyd Tanner’s capture and crucifixion. A few years late, but we took care of it, didn’t we? Besides, we were never here. Or there. Alejandro and I were on leave. He hurt his arm doing something. Officially, that’s what happened.”
One more round of handshakes. “Safe travels,” I say. “And for you, too, Claire.”
To my daughter, Claire says, “You going to the Sidwell reunion this fall?”
Mel says, “God, no.”
“Good. Neither am I. Keep in touch, okay?”
“Okay, girl.”
They enter the Suburban and drive away, and Mel slips an arm through mine, and we head to the few structures that make up Bangor International Airport. Around the quiet airport are a lot of pine trees. A knot of people come running out of the near building, clapping and cheering, and leading the race is my wife, Samantha, and in seconds she’s smothering Mel, and then me, and then the both of us, and so a precious and tearful few minutes pass.
Mel shrugs and sits down, and winces as her bandaged and slippered feet are put on the metal stands, and I see that the smiling people around me are my Secret Service detail from Lake Marie: agents Stacy Fields, Ron Dalton, Paula Chin, Emma Curtis, and Nicole Washington.
Agent Washington, who accompanied David Stahl and me when we escaped from Mary’s Diner, and who sped out with our cell phones to lead FBI agents away from our trail, comes forward. I give her a hug and say, “You okay? You get caught?”
She laughs. “No. And I’m disappointed I wasn’t. Guess the FBI didn’t track a thing.”
The agents all have black ribbons on their lapels, and it strikes me again, the sacrifice and duty of David, over in Libya, a long, long way from home, where he could have stayed safe.
But that wasn’t David.
Madeline Perry, my chief of staff, comes through and hugs me, then Mel, then Samantha, and with tears running down her cheeks, she says, “Oh, Mr. President, you did it…you did it…welcome home, welcome home, sir.”
I smile at her and say, “Sure as hell didn’t do it by myself.”
She says, “Sir…you probably weren’t expecting this so soon, but there’s a huge media presence in the terminal.”
Samantha, standing behind Mel in her wheelchair, hands on Mel’s shoulders, says, “How huge?”
“More than a hundred…Sir, could you give a brief statement? Please? Give them something now and they might leave you alone for the rest of the day.”
Mel is frowning and Samantha looks toward the terminal, shrugs, and says, “Oh, why not?”
We start moving toward the terminal, Samantha holding Mel’s hand and me pushing the wheelchair, and we get into the lower part of the building, and there are Maine state troopers and Bangor police officers to escort us in, each with a black band across his or her shield.
I catch the eye of Agent Washington and say, “Nicole, do me a favor: will you take over these pushing duties? I want a moment with my chief of staff.”
We switch off and I spot an empty office behind a pile of luggage, and I lead Maddie inside and we both sit down, and she’s still smiling.
“Sir, welcome home. I can’t wait to hear how you pulled this off, and what happened over there.”
I say, “I still can’t believe it myself.”
Maddie says, “I have to tell you: I’ve been getting texts all day from every major publisher in New York. Your book…an instant worldwide bestseller the moment you publish it.”
“I’m sure,” I say. “But Maddie, just one thing before we start talking book deals.”
“Certainly, sir,” she says, obviously happy, her eyes lit up. “What is it?”
I say, “Maddie, why did you sabotage me?”
Chapter
134
Bangor International Airport
Bangor, Maine
I have to give my tough chief of staff credit. She doesn’t argue with me, or deny it, or say anything.
But the light is gone from her eyes.
She sits with me in this heavy silence in this small office.
I say, “Just before we left to catch that tanker flight from Pease, I made two phone calls. One to Samantha, and one to you, because I thought you deserved to know what I was doing. When we got to Pease, we almost weren’t allowed to leave. The White House ordered the aircraft to stand fast. Who did you call? Richard Barnes?”
The color seems to slowly drain from her face. “No,” she says. “Felicia Taft, his deputy. I…told her.”
I wait.
“Why?”
Her eyes swell up, moisten. “I was afraid for you, sir. Afraid you were going to get wounded, captured, or killed. That the mission might be a failure. That you might end up…killing Mel. Instead of rescuing her. I didn’t want your name, your legacy, to be a failure. If Mel was still alive, I thought…the professionals would be called in.”
“That was my decision to make, wasn’t it?” I say.
“Yes, sir, but I was also thinking about the future…the foundation you wanted to set up for vets. Without you…it would never happen. Thousands of vets would continue to suffer or die every year.”
I want to make this quick.
My reunited family is waiting for me.
I say, “Then make the book deal, Maddie. Best you can. And then after the contracts are signed and I start writing it, I want you to run the foundation. We’re going to call it the Boyd Tanner and David Stahl Memorial Fund, and you’ll be in charge.”
Maddie is confused. “But sir…”
I stand up. “That means you’re out as my chief of staff. I can’t trust you anymore, Maddie, but I can trust you to run this foundation. Do a good job in their memories.”
She just nods. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Me, too,” I say, and then I leave.
I follow a helpful Maine state trooper to where my family is waiting, in a hallway outside the main terminal, and I can hear the hum of voices nearby. To Mel and Sam I say, “Ready?,” and they both nod.
We go out into the terminal, which has the ugliest black-and-white tiled floor I’ve ever seen, and as we become visible, loud applause and questions roar out. There’s a small table with a forest of microphones set in the middle. Samantha wheels Mel up to the table, and I stand to Mel’s left while my wife takes the other side.
Finally, I raise my hand and say, “Quiet, please, quiet. I’ll answer as many questions as possible…but you have to realize my family is pretty tired.” I point to a news anchor from one of the local Portland stations. “Go ahead.”
“Mr. President, who joined you in this rescue mission? And can we talk to them?”
I say, “Well-trained friends of mine who helped me with the intelligence gathering, planning, and its execution. They’ve asked to remain anonymous, and I’m going to respect their wishes. Next?”
The brusque questioner is a male reporter from one of the cable networks, and he built his career on hunting down Keating Administration scandals and not finding one, which made him even more suspicious.
He asks, “Sir, isn’t it true that by performing this risky and unauthorized mission, you’re expressing your dislike and distrust of the Barnes Administration?”
That question silences the room, and after a few seconds pass, I say, “No. Next?”
“Sir, it appears you’re injured. How did that happen?”
I lift my wrist. “Cut myself—that’s all.”
“Sir, is Asim Al-Asheed dead? And did you have a hand in his killing?”
I say, “Asim Al-Asheed is now in a position where he won’t hurt or kill any more innocents. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”
“Did you ask the Barnes Administration for permission before heading out to rescue your daughter?”
I smile. “Didn’t have the time. One more, then, please.”
My pompous cable reporter friend butts in loudly again and says, “Sir, aren’t you concerned that the Barnes Administration will prosecute you under the Logan Act?”
I give them all a good smile and say, “Jake, you know as well as I do that the Logan Act only applies to citizens conducting unauthorized diplomacy with a foreign power.” I pause. “Whatever I was doing in Libya was definitely not diplomacy.”
Lots of laughter at that, and when it dies down, I say, “How about some questions for my daughter? She’s the real hero here.”
The media instantly picks up on that, and I expect Mel to be Mel, and she doesn’t disappoint.
“Mel, how are you feeling?”
“Tired. Achy. My feet are a mess and it looks like a bullet scraped my upper right arm.”
“Were you scared?”
“Every damn second.”
“Did you say thank you to your dad?”
Mel waits for a moment and says, “Boy,
that’s a dumb question. Anybody got a smart one?”
A few titters at that, and someone yells out, “What food did you miss the most?”
“Cheeseburgers,” she says. “I’m dying for a cheeseburger.”
“Whose?” says a voice from the back. “McDonald’s? Burger King? In-N-Out?”
“C’mon,” Mel says. “There are no In-N-Out Burger chains on the East Coast. And besides, my dad makes the best cheeseburgers in the world. I’ll wait for his.”
Then it’s Samantha’s turn, and an anchor from a Boston channel says, “Mrs. Keating, what are your plans now?”
That seems to catch Sam off guard because she lowers her eyes, gives her head a quick shake, and looks at me while answering.
She’s quietly weeping but smiling, and with a shock, I realize I’m doing the same thing.
They say politicians should never cry in public, but now I don’t care.
We made it.
“I think it’s time for a sabbatical, to spend a lot more time with my family,” Samantha softly says.
A follow-up question: “But we understand that just a few weeks ago, you made a historic find in Maine, revealing the first Basque village ever to be found in North America. Don’t you want to go back to your work?”
Again, her loving and calm look, right at me, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. I look right back, loving her forever one more time, both of us holding on to our daughter with love and gratitude.
“No,” she says. “That’s what weekends and grad students are for.”
Chapter
135
Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China
New York, New York
In a crowded dining room in the mission building, Jiang Lijun is feeling stuffed and achy. His stomach is full after an eight-course meal given in his honor, though the truth is, he doesn’t feel very honorable, not after what happened in Libya. He has two cracked ribs at his back, where the American sniper’s bullet struck his bullet-resistant vest, and only with the luck of having turned at the last moment did the bullet merely glance off him and not kill him.